From The PBS NewsHour
By Bella Isaacs-Thomas
When a user enters a handful of key words, these models generate images that combine those concepts in novel ways. If you want to see a T. rex tap-dancing on Jupiter but don’t have a knack for Photoshop or charcoal, a number of different models will do the job for you, with varying degrees of quality, often in mere seconds...
“You can see why this is in some ways a much more powerful technology from the point of view of creativity, but also manipulation,” compared to models that preceded these ones, said Hany Farid, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley.
Bad actors using technology to create false or misleading content is nothing new — the fact is “we’ve always been distorting reality,” said Farid, noting that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin notoriously manipulated photographs to his benefit.
Hany Farid is a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information and EECS.
